


Rules and Ruins

by chamel



Series: Whumptober 2020 Prompt Fills [1]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Blood, Cara Whump, F/M, Force Ghost(s), Ghosts, Halloween, Hurt/Comfort, I mean who really knows how they work anyway, Idiots in Love, POV Din Djarin, Pining, Whumptober 2020, blatant disregard for how force ghosts work, certainly not the people in charge of canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26952538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chamel/pseuds/chamel
Summary: About halfway to the next split in the path there were clear signs of a scuffle. Or one side of a scuffle. It looked odd, like Cara had been, well, fighting a ghost. The kid made a soft sound in the floating pram next to him, peering down at the spot like he could see the signs himself. When he looked back up at Din, his wrinkly little brow was even more wrinkled in consternation.“I’m sure she’s not far,” he said, as much to reassure himself as the kid.Din was looking down at the ground again, inspecting the other side of the scuffle, when he saw it. Was that… blood?(Things go sideways in a spoooooky way when the gang goes to investigate some temple ruins.)
Relationships: Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Din Djarin & Cara Dune
Series: Whumptober 2020 Prompt Fills [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1966801
Comments: 12
Kudos: 48





	Rules and Ruins

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo, look who it is! I wasn't sure about my inspiration lately but then I decided I wanted to try to fill some Whumptober prompts, and for this I went ahead and threw in a Mandoctober prompt too, because why not? And also this is a ghost story, because HAPPY HALLOWEEN y'all!
> 
> Title/Lyrics from the Band of Skulls song "Blood"
> 
> Whumptober 2020 No. 10 “Trail of Blood”  
> Mandoctober 2020 No. 8 “Enemy Sorcerer”

_I know you're bleeding baby,_  
_But you're not bleeding blood_

The map had said “temple ruins,” and they’d assumed.

It wasn’t like they hadn’t investigated dozens of Jedi temple ruins at this point. Every single one of them a dead end, of course. Din had heard the stories of the Jedi as a kid, but they never prepared him for the sheer number of temples and ruins that they’d left behind, most nothing more than piles of stone and ash. He didn’t know what had happened to exterminate them so thoroughly, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Sometimes it seemed like they were chasing nothing but ghosts.

Nevertheless, he never thought he’d be chasing an _actual_ ghost. Or whatever that was. The robed figure had materialized out of nowhere, glowing with an eerie bluish light, only to slip around a corner and seemingly disappear again. It’s presence had greatly disturbed the kid, who had let out a blood-curdling squeal at the sight of it. Din had been so concerned with making sure that the kid hadn’t somehow gotten injured that he hadn’t seen Cara disappear.

At first, he thought she’d just followed the figure around the corner, and maybe she had, but when he stepped cautiously around the fallen stones that partly blocked the path he saw nothing.

“Cara?” he called, cautious but not yet worried. Surely she was just out of sight. Surely she was nearby. Surely it would take more than a stupid ghost to get the drop on his dropper.

(Not _his_ dropper, some small voice reminded him. Just because they were partners professionally—and he’d only recently made enough progress that he didn’t feel awkward calling her his partner in public—that didn’t make Cara _his_. Just like he wasn’t _her_ Mandalorian.

Except he _was_ , even if she didn’t know it.

 _Enough of that_ , he snapped at the voice. They wouldn’t be anything to each other if he didn’t find her.)

Din reached up and tapped on the side of his helmet to turn on the tracking overlay on his helmet. Cara’s footprints lit up red on his heads-up display, but the ‘ghost’, true to form, had left no trace. The prints extended down what had once been a hall, stepping around fallen rubble, and Din wondered how she’d gotten so far away in that brief amount of time.

About halfway to the next split in the path there were clear signs of a scuffle. Or one side of a scuffle. It looked odd, like Cara had been, well, fighting a ghost. The kid made a soft sound in the floating pram next to him, peering down at the spot like he could see the signs himself. When he looked back up at Din, his wrinkly little brow was even more wrinkled in consternation.

“I’m sure she’s not far,” he said, as much to reassure himself as the kid.

Din was looking down at the ground again, inspecting the other side of the scuffle, when he saw it. Was that… blood? He turned the tracking overlay off so he could better see the dark splotches in the dirt. The daylight had faded substantially since they’d gotten there and was only getting dimmer, turning the thick, gooey liquid completely black. A quick analysis of it proved that it was in fact human blood, but there was something about it that wasn’t normal. Maybe it wasn’t Cara’s, then.

That thought didn’t keep icy fingers of fear from curling around his gut. Something about all of this was really wrong, and the kid’s increasingly frantic whining seemed to confirm he felt the same way.

“We’ll find her,” he told him, his voice less soothing than he might have hoped. “Then we’ll leave this creepy place behind for good.”

The kid shrieked, eyes going wide at something behind him, and Din whipped around to catch a glimpse of the ghost streaking across the hall, emerging from a solid stone wall and disappearing into its counterpart a few feet away. He stood frozen for a moment, heart racing in a slightly embarrassing way (seriously, he felt like ten years old again, listening to Paz tell scary stories around a campfire), but the ghost didn’t immediately reappear.

He might have been conflicted on whether to follow the ghost or the trail of blood, but seeing as he could not walk through walls himself, the blood seemed the way to go. Trying to fight back the bile rising in his throat, Din began following the droplets and cursed silently as they started getting bigger. There were no more footsteps here, which made no sense whatsoever. Where had Cara gone? Had she been carried? By a _ghost_?

“Cara?” he called again.

There was no mistaking the fear in his voice now, but really, he thought it was at least a bit warranted. Certainly the fact that the blood droplets had transitioned to a nearly steady stream justified a little dread. Maybe even as much as was currently choking him.

“Din?”

At first, he wasn't sure he’d actually heard her voice and not imagined it. It seemed like it was coming from a great distance, echoing among the ruins. But the kid’s ears perked up at the sound of it, so that was something.

“Din, are you— are you there?” Cara’s voice warbled uncertainly.

He took at least some comfort in the fact that she didn’t exactly sound _afraid_. In fact, she sounded less afraid than he did. Instead, there was a distinct note of confusion in her voice. He tried not to think about the fact that if she’d lost as much blood as it looked like she could have, she might be too out of it to be properly afraid.

But no. This was Cara that he was thinking about. It was more likely that she’d bled the ghost dry and had simply gotten turned around in the maze-like ruins. The light had nearly completely faded, and it was only due to his helmet lamp that he could see where he was going.

A few more minutes tracking the trail led him to a truly horrifying pool of blood on the ground. And then… nothing. Just like the footprints, the blood was pooled and smeared all over the stones in a small area, but beyond that all signs ceased.

“Cara!” he yelled, and the kid let out a high keening sound at the same time that echoed through the ruins long after his own voice had faded.

Nothing.

Din snarled in frustration. “Hey! Ghost! Show yourself, coward!”

Ok, so it felt a little absurd, yelling at a ghost, but what else was he going to to do? The anxiety of his utter helplessness in this moment was beginning to settle into his bones. The only sound in the tomb-like silence was the kid’s quiet snuffling.

“I’m done playing whatever kriffing game this is. You give her back, or you’ll regret this, I promise.”

Nevermind that that was probably the weakest threat Din had ever made. What could he do to a ghost? Of course there was the other option, that he was simply going insane. As he stood there, waiting for a ghost to respond to his taunting, the latter seemed increasingly likely.

He was moments away from starting to search the ruins at random for some sign of her when the kid shrieked again, raising a small three-fingered hand toward the pool of blood. Had he missed something there? Din scanned the area, starting with the blood and turning in a small circle, and when he turned back the glowing blue figure was standing just behind the puddle, watching him.

Well, maybe watching him. He couldn’t actually make out a face in the blackness under the hood. Scooting protectively toward the kid, he unslung his rifle, completely aware that an entity that could float through walls was unlikely to be affected by a disintegration ray. Holding the gun made him feel better, though, and there was something to be said for that.

“Where is she?” he demanded. Could a ghost even talk back? He had no idea. “What did you do with her?”

The ghost stood motionless. Kriff, this was stupid. What did he expect was going to happen? Din was just about to waste a cartridge and shoot at the nebulous figure anyway, just for kicks, when _finally_ he got a response.

“You bring one of great power here,” a low voice rumbled through the air. It seemed to rattle the stones and his bones alike, vibrations lingering in his beskar long after the sound was gone.

“What’s it to you?” Din shot back with more bravado than he felt.

“I am the protector of this temple,” the voice grated, like two heavy stones being ground together. “You are trespassing.”

“Right, well, you could have just said something,” Din argued. “We’re just trying to find the Jedi.”

A dry cackle rattled through the air. “There are no Jedi here, _Mandalorian_ ,” the voice sneered.

“I can see that,” he answered dryly. “Obviously there’s no one left—”

This was apparently not the right thing to say. “ _I am here, fool_ ,” the voice howled, triggering a high-pitched whimper from the kid.

Din’s heart lept into his throat, but despite the kid’s obvious distress he didn’t look injured in any way. He wheeled on the ghost again, taking a tentative step forward. “Ok, sure. Whoever you are, I don’t care. Where is my partner? What have you done with her?”

“She made an… _unwise_ choice. You may have what remains of her, in exchange for the child.”

“No deal,” Din replied quickly, feeling on somewhat more stable ground. This wasn’t the first time they’d gotten themselves into this type of situation. Granted, they weren’t usually negotiating with a ghost, and there wasn’t usually _this much_ blood involved, but still. It was familiar.

“It is amusing that you think you can bargain with the Sith.” The voice weighed heavily on the last word, like that was supposed to mean anything to Din. “Be thankful you may get anything at all.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to work for me. How about this: you give me my partner, and I won’t torch what’s left of this place on our way out.”

There was seemingly no response to this offer. The figure of the ghost had just been standing there while the voice seemed to come from all around them, and it continued to do so now. Din wondered if they had reached some kind of stalemate, and how he was going to rescue someone who didn’t seem to be physically present in this plane of existence.

“Din,” Cara’s voice echoed. She sounded… tired. And who wouldn’t, with that amount of blood loss?

“Cara, where are you?” Din called back.

“I’m… I’m right here,” she groaned, sounding unmistakably like she was struggling against something.

An icy finger trailed down Din’s spine as he watched ripples appear in the pool of blood, almost like someone invisible was kneeling in it. The disembodied voice hissed in surprise and the figure finally moved, raising a hand that quickly smoothed away the ripples again.

“Cara, whatever you were doing, keep going,” Din urged.

She let out a low groan. “I don’t think I can. You should… you should get the kid out of here.”

“Kriff that,” he swore. “I’m not leaving you.”

“Din—”

“NO,” he snapped. He turned his attention back to the figure. “You, release her. Or…”  
  
“Or what?” the voice rasped out. “You have no power here.”

Damned ghost had a point. When he’d set out to find the enemy sorcerers, Din had certainly not bargained on enemy _ghost_ sorcerers. He had never doubted his ability to take on whatever foes might come his way, but he’d never encountered a foe like this.

The figure clenched its raised hand into a fist and Cara cried out in pain. Din rushed forward toward the figure with no plan other than to _stop_ whatever it was doing, but before he even reached the pool of blood a high, keening wail pierced the air. The sound made his every hair stand on end, and he would have assumed it was the ghost except that the cry seemed to make the figure shrink back in something like terror.

“ _Stop… him…_ ” the voice shrieked, almost entirely drowned out by the wail.

Din whirled back in surprise to see that the sound was coming from the kid. It just kept coming, like he didn’t need to breathe, and as it continued the ghost shrank back further, clamping its hands over the sides of its hooded head.

“Stop him yourself,” Din growled, somehow knowing with certainty that the ghost could not.

He didn’t know how long they stood there with the kid’s eerie cry hanging in the air. It felt like mere moments and long hours all at once. Even after the kid’s mouth closed the sound seemed to linger in the ruin, echoing endlessly through the stones.

As the ghost retreated, whatever illusion that had bound Cara was dissolved and she reappeared on her hands and knees in the middle of the pool of blood. Dropping the rifle, Din rushed forward and fell to his knees next to her, heedless of the blood soaking through his pants.

She was so, so pale. Din’s hands trembled as he pulled her to his chest, cradling her body against him. Dark, thick blood soaked through most of her clothing, crusted over in some places, and yet he couldn’t see any sign of injury. None of her clothes were ripped or cut, and as he ran his hands through the blood covering her arms they revealed nothing but smooth, unbroken skin.

Her eyes had been screwed closed in pain when he first collected her into his arms, but as he checked her over they fluttered open and the grimace curling her lips relaxed into a weak smile.

“Who knew those pipes would come in useful someday,” she huffed. “Kinda makes all the 4am wakeups worth it.” She seemed to try a laugh, but it quickly disintegrated into a wet, hacking cough that brought pink-tinged sputum to her lips.

“Shhhh,” Din told her, smoothing her hair back from her forehead and leaving trails of her own blood on her skin. “Now’s maybe not the time for jokes.”  
  
Cara scoffed at him, rolling her eyes. Stars, this woman. Only she could magically lose an absurd amount of blood and have the temerity to roll her eyes at him. “If I can’t joke when I’m half dead, when can I?”

“What happened?” he asked, ignoring the absurd question, and ignoring the way his own voice seemed to waver. “You… you were gone.”

“Didn’t think it could possibly be a kriffing ghost,” she groaned. “Not until I started _leaking_ blood from everywhere and nowhere, at least. Almost had ‘im, once.”

Din couldn’t quite hold back astonished laugh at this statement. “How did you possibly ‘have’ a ghost?”

“S’not all ghost, is he?” she said nonsensically. “Kinda… squirrelly. Sometimes had a solid form. But then he got me in some… place that wasn’t a place.”

“I think you’re getting delirious,” he told her, even though he couldn’t deny that he’d seen the odd signs of the one-sided scuffle in the hall. “C’mon, we gotta get you back to the Razor Crest. Can you stand at all?”

“Course I can,” she retorted, but her words had started slurring together and her eyelids were falling shut again.

Din swore as she slipped toward unconsciousness. If he could get her back to the ship, he could get a bacta infusion into her, but the hike here hadn’t been a short one, and Cara was solid muscle. But there was nothing for it.

Pulling her more completely into his arms, Din struggled to his feet. She groaned at the movement and pressed her face into the crook of his neck, her hands clinging to the edges of his beskar chestplate. The flutter of her eyelashes tickled his skin and set his heart to thudding in a way that was really entirely inappropriate given her current state.

“You ok?” he grunted at the kid, and got a satisfied burble in return. At least _he_ seemed utterly unaffected by the encounter, now that Cara had returned and the ghost was gone.

Somehow Din found the strength to carry Cara back to the ship in half the time it took them to get out there. Wasn’t like he had another option, anyway. Cara mumbled deliriously the whole way back, but at least if she was talking that meant she was awake. It had mostly trailed off by the time he laid her carefully in her bunk on the ship, though the difficulty he had prying her hands off his armor belied her apparent unconsciousness.

The bacta infusion would take a few hours, so after he set up the IV bag he went to grab a bucket of warm water and cloth to start wiping the dried blood from her skin. It had turned both of their clothes into itchy, crusty messes, but fixing that would have to wait.

Din wiped a smear of blood off her forehead from where his hands had left it there as he’d cradled her in his lap among the ruins, then ran the soft cloth over the speckles of blood on her lips. At least she’d stopped coughing. He couldn’t quite stop himself from running his fingers gently along the side of her cheek, barely suppressing a shudder at the thought of all that blood on the ground.

Amazingly, Cara’s lips curled into a soft smirk, though her eyes remained closed. “Credit for your thoughts, Djarin.”

Din felt his face get hot under his helmet at being caught making such a tender display. He tried to pull his hand away but she grabbed it with surprising (come now, nothing about it was surprising at this point) speed, pressing it back to her cheek and turning her face into it.

“Thought I was going to lose you,” he choked out, embarrassed at the emotion in his voice but too overwhelmed by everything that had happened to care.

Cara hummed, nuzzling into his palm ever so slightly. “Can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“Good,” he whispered. “I need you.”

Well. That was quite a lot to admit. Din was starting to wonder if maybe _he’d_ lost some blood somewhere during all that. Surely there must be something else to explain why he felt this lightheaded, why he couldn’t seem to keep his internal thoughts _internal_.

At least Cara seemed too out of it to notice. “Course you do,” she muttered, smiling.

Din cleared his throat, swallowing down his feelings, and ran his thumb softly over her cheek. “I should let you get some rest now.”

“Mmm, don’t go,” she protested, even though he’d made no move to leave her side. As if he could. At last her eyes fluttered open again, and their inky depths stared back at him through the cabin’s low light. “I need my Mandalorian.”

Ok, so maybe she did know. Which was terrifying, but not near as terrifying as finding her in a pool of her own blood, so. Progress?

“Course you do,” he managed, though the smartness of the rejoinder was diminished by how thick his stupid voice sounded. “And now he’s telling you to sleep.”

Cara’s eyelids drooped again, but the soft smile lingered on her lips. “Yessir. I’m yours to command.”

“You’re definitely not going to remember saying that when you wake up,” he murmured, trying to temper the bright bloom of warmth spreading through his chest.

Din watched as she slowly drifted off, her hand relaxing from where it still gripped his wrist. After a few long minutes, when he was sure she was completely asleep, he extracted his hand and reached up to pull his helmet off, setting it softly on the ground by his side. And if he took the opportunity to lean forward and press a gentle kiss to her forehead, well, maybe that was progress, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this somewhat silly halloween story! Of course I had to throw some tender CaraDin moments at the end. Would love to hear what you thought!
> 
> As a side note, has anyone else noticed all the tag changes?? Looks like an AO3 tag wrangler has been having fun. Threw me for a loop. Some of those relationship tags are a fucking hoot. And why is Cara the only character to still have "The Mandalorian" as her / pairing instead of the new Din Djarin tag? At least Cara/Mando/Omera isn't the very first tag that shows up when you type in Cara/Mando anymore.


End file.
